Tate Multimedia on rebooting Kao, and the gentle art of nostalgia

gamesindustry.biz:

Danielle Partis

News Editor

Monday 14th February 2022

The age of platforming games has seen a resurgence in recent years, with some of the biggest mascots of the era making long-awaited returns to recent console generations.

One such IP lost to time as the platforming era dwindled was Kao The Kangaroo, a charming adventure title from Polish studio Tate Multimedia. Kao made his debut in 2000 on PC, and later arrived on the Dreamcast, the least popular of two consoles battling for platforming prominence at the time.

Kao did well enough to receive a couple of sequels; Kao The Kangaroo: Round 2 released in 2003, this time making it onto PlayStation and Xbox, and Kao the Kangaroo: Mystery of the Volcano, which was released in 2005 on PC.

Tate hasn't been sitting on its hands since then. The studio has dabbled in other areas, notably racing titles Urban Trial Freestyle released in 2013, and Steel Rats, released in 2018.

But Kao's fan base remained, and even after 15 years, remained vocal about their want to see the return of the marmalade-coloured marsupial.

Now, 17 years later, Tate is primed to release a reboot of the Kao series. A fully reimagined game from the ground up and resembling remakes of its ilk, Kao 2022 promises something that both new and returning fans can enjoy.

"We realised that there's still a fan base that is constantly posting something about the old games," Tate Media head of publishing Kaja Borówko tells GamesIndustry.biz. "Back in the day, around 2000, there was no social media and there were no community related activities. So as developers, we were not aware of the impact of the game back then. But in recent days, we've seen through all that available media that there's still interest, and that Tate Media